People around the world are familiar with Jack Daniel’s, but they may not know much about the man behind the brand name - the son of a wealthy Scottish immigrant who combined whiskey making techniques from his father’s homeland with Tennessee maple sugar to create a distinctive new type of libation. Nor do they know much about his nephew, a one-time Tennessee state senator who learned how to market that whiskey to the world

Tennesseans can now find the history of the Daniel family - along with more than 30,000 others – with the help of an online index available on the Tennessee State Library and Archives’ (TSLA) web page at http://www.tn.gov/tsla/history/misc/biography.htm

TSLA is a division of the Office of the Secretary of State.

For years, TSLA has been collecting books full of biographical information on famous and not-so-famous Tennesseans. The library’s holdings contain more than 90 books with such varying titles as “Who's Who in Tennessee,” “Biographical Directory of the Tennessee General Assembly,” “Prominent Tennesseans,” “Over the Misty Blue Hills: The Story of Cocke County” and “Bench and Bar of Knox County.”

To make that information more accessible, TSLA staffers have transferred information from those books into an online index with biographical listings by name. Many of the listings include a birth and death year, followed by the book title and location. The index also indicates if a portrait of the individual is included.

People can search online for names of people that interest them and contact TSLA staffers, who will send copies of the available biographical information via mail or e-mail.

“The library has put together a huge collection of profiles on people across this great state,” said Secretary of State Tre Hargett. “While this information is available at TSLA’s building in Nashville, many Tennesseans don’t have the time or the resources to visit. Making this information available with the help of the online index is one more way we can better serve the citizens of Tennessee.”